


The Coffin Bell

by shambling



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, post whispers under ground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23003317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shambling/pseuds/shambling
Summary: Peter has a perfectly reasonable fear of being buried alive, and Nightingale has an answer
Relationships: Peter Grant & Thomas Nightingale
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	The Coffin Bell

The thing about being buried under half a ton of rubble is, it gives you what I refuse to call a phobia, and instead refer to as a perfectly reasonable fear of being nearly crushed and or drowned to death. Again. Phobias are, by their nature, irrational, which is why you can’t have a phobia of axe-waving murderers. Of course you could technically develop a fear of encountering one in spite of how unlikely that is. But that’s rather beside my point. My main point is that after waking up myself screaming and thrashing for the third time in a month, I was starting to get very tired indeed of this new “phobia” and was feeling increasingly desperate for a way to stop it, something which had not escaped the notice of Nightingale.

He is, of course, far too reserved and capital B British to do anything like acknowledge either of us might have emotions. The pay off of a quite literally Victorian upbringing, but one thing he is good at is talking around the subject so all involved get to save face, and no-one has to say or hear the words “you woke me up at 3am screaming again”. So what Nightingale said was “Are you still having trouble sleeping?” And what I said was:

“Yeah a bit” and we both knew exactly what that meant.

“I had had an idea that might help.” He said slowly, regarding me over his teacup at the breakfast table. “But it’s a relatively difficult spell for you to master. Fourth order or possibly fifth, but if you think it would help?” He has a habit of producing these sort of semi-gnomic utterances as though he’s having the other half of the conversation in his head. I put it down to too long with only Molly for company. “What, a spell to help me sleep?”

“Oh gracious no,” he grinned at me, “ a spell to dig you out.”

*

And so that was how we came to be facing each other in the gym with a large pile of pillows and cushions gathered from around the Folly and a punch bag taken down from its hangings for good measure. I was suddenly and forcibly reminded of that bit in Harry Potter when a teacher shows him a very difficult and advanced spell to help stop him from fainting and wondered whether Nightingale might give me some chocolate if I actually panicked hard enough to pass out. More likely I think he’d just be immensely embarrassed, although not as embarrassed as me.

“This will take a good deal of practice Peter, and it might still be too advanced for you. But I think knowing you could deal with the problem if it arose again might prove calming for you; which is why we’re here.” He had said.

The spell is charmingly known in the vernacular as “The Coffin Bell” in reference to the 18th and 19th century fad for safety coffins and the fear of premature burial, but as the name entirely fails to suggest, the spell actually focuses on allowing a practitioner to disinter him or herself rather forcibly, rather than waiting and hoping for the best. There’s no record of it’s being used to the purpose it was devised, and as Nightingale observed, it would take a very powerful or determined practitioner indeed to shift 6 feet of loose earth, but it was nice to know it was an option. A very powerful practitioner I was not, at least not yet, but determined I definitely was.

The spell shares some of its characteristic qualities with the one Nightingale uses to pop out locks, or at least, it does in the sense that “forgive me father for I have sinned” and “sorry daddy I’ve been very naughty” mean the same thing. The important thing was that, however it worked, it would allow me to throw anything trapping me clear of myself, and if not allow for a full disinterment then at least make some breathing room available.

Practice consisted first of blasting a pile of cushions across the room, moving up to lying underneath them and using the formae to throw them off myself. The less said about what happened the first time we tried me lying down with a pillow across my face the better, but I didn’t actually cause any property damage and its not like that pillow was in regular use anyway. The important thing is that after some months of practice I was becoming increasingly confident that I could, if not throw off 6ft of earth, I could at least make breathing space for myself, and the promise of the ability to throw more away was making me feel better.

But perhaps most importantly of all, for the ongoing good of the Folly, I’d stopped screaming us both awake at night. But I still don’t like small enclosed spaces.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not super keen on the ending but I wanted to get this up, mainly because I was struck by the mental image/comparisons between Harry learning to cast a patronus and I liked the idea that Peter learned this fairly soon after WUG for his own peace of mind


End file.
